'Guiding Stars' supermarket program, used at Bates, gets a tweak, Associated Press reports

The Associated Press on July 7, 2009, reports a tweak to the Guiding Stars program, a food star rating system used at Bates and in more than 1,400 Food Lion, Hannaford and Sweetbay supermarkets from Maine to Florida. The tweaks remove the penalty for small amounts of trans fat that appear naturally in some meat and dairy products.

The science-based Guiding Stars system rates foods with zero to three stars highlighting items according to good, better or best nutritional value, respectively. The program’s revision is the first since being launched three years ago by the Hannaford supermarket chain.